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5 Scary Books to Read This Halloween

I've always been a trick-or-treat hater. The mask pinched my chin, the microwave box repurposed as a computer monitor costume turned out not to be so comfortable, and the trench coat my mom insisted I wear took all the fun out of dressing up as Madonna in the era of "Material Girl." The holiday improved drastically when I became the wine-sipping chaperone of my own little bumblebees and Harry Potters, but my favorite Halloween tradition continues to be the trick-or-treat after-party: Just me and a collection of pilfered Mr. Goodbars accompanied by a spine-tingling book, read by the light of the season's first fire.

The title alone is enough to make your hair stand on end. Boyne's is a classic Dickensian ghost story, with an unexpected and horrific twist. On a dark and stormy night in 1867, Eliza Caine reports to her new governess job at a remote Baroque mansion where she meets up with a girl wearing a white nightgown. (If you're a member of the Poltergeist generation, like me, this detail will be enough to thoroughly freak you out.) It turns out there are no other adults at Gaudlin Hall—even the driver who ferries Eliza to the front door refuses to cross the threshold. That night, as she's falling asleep, the unsettled governess gets the scare of her life: "A pair of hands grabbed both my ankles tightly, the fingers pressing sharply against the bone, as they pulled me down into the bed and I gasped, dragging myself back up quickly, wondering what kind of terrible nightmare I had fallen into." And this is just the beginning...

In this debut novel for brave young adults (and some less-brave adults), we meet 16-year-old Dan Crawford, who has been counting the minutes until the start of a five-week college prep camp at New Hampshire College. The regular dorms are being renovated, so Dan is housed in Brookline, a sinister-looking former mental-health facility that screams "bad juju" from a block away. Of course, even the most studious teenagers can only apply themselves for so long, so Dan and his smart-kid cronies begin to explore their new digs. They discover atrocities that were meant to stay hidden and are all the more horrific in the retelling thanks to the book's green-tinted illustrations and photos from actual asylums. Will these kids be able to walk away from what they've learned? Will they ever feel safe again? I started reading this one at my desk in broad daylight and still got goose bumps.

Thanks to The Shining, "REDRUM" is hands-down the most gut-wrenching nom-word in the English language. Say it in the creepy voice of the boy in the movie and you're immediately transported to that sleepless sleepover where you first watched it in someone's basement rec room. What ever happened to that boy? Did he turn into an angry alcoholic like his dad? Now you can find out in this stressful, suspenseful, semi-sequel, which King himself calls "a real balls-to-the-wall scary story." (Note to newbies: The Shining is not a prerequisite for enjoyment of this book—it's a standalone page-turner.)

This is the most uplifting of the bunch, which is saying something since it takes place in a grim dystopia. Maddadam is the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Oryx & Crake and continued with The Year of the Flood. It opens months after a man-made pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. Among the survivors are Toby and Zeb, who become leaders and defenders of their new community, which is strong on scrappiness and cynicism (understandably) but also has an inspiring capacity for self-sacrifice. Atwood's head-spinning survival story consists of equal parts war, adventure, and romance.

OK, it might not have a traditional fright factor, but this history of candy includes some scary—and fascinating—tidbits. For instance: Did you know that the original Hershey bar was marketed in 1903 as a nutritious confection, labelled as "more sustaining than meat"? Or that the seasonal delicacy now known as candy corn was originally sold as "chicken feed," with a proud rooster as its mascot? Kawesh's meticulously researched book even includes the backstory on trick-or-treating, which is rooted in a tradition of gangsters, pranks, and rude shakedowns of unsuspecting neighbors.

Can you blame me for preferring my own tradition? What are you reading this month?

Photos: Courtesy of Other Press, Harper Collins, Scribner, Doubleday, and Faber and Faber